Month: February 2016

Management is a difficult art, management in a big corporations is more difficult. Management in a corporation where multicultural requirement is a need is even more hard.

We all know it and, at a certain extent, we have to deal with it. We can’t expect everything works good and right, and we have to show flexibility and we have to open to change and embrace the new but…

Let’s be real, no matter how much effort you put sometimes things are just not right.

There are plenty of ways a company can make your life miserable, and usually they try to ise them all, sometimes the environment is so strong that even the best manager have to comply to disgraceful attitudes.

let’s name some that can turn your working life in a nightmare, some are directly related to management styles, other to corporate rules (mainly thanks CFO and HR)

This is a common nightmare. The manager that want to check every single details. but not in a helpful proactive way, but in a compulsory need to not give delegation or autonomy to the people.

Usually micromanagement comes with a exaggerated manager ego (I am not right because I’m right, I am right because I am the Boss) and a fundamental mistrust of the other people.

Quite a sociopathic attitude? not really is more common than we should expect. It happen that people moved to management position change their attitude and adhere to this model.

Usually the micromanager is also extremely rude and impolite, the kind of guy that calls you at 10pm shouting if you do not anser immediately. you do not have right to your personal life, you life should be built around your manager.

nd of course the micromanager value your time in a different way, so no matter if you reach your goal, the important thing for the micromanager are:

do it his-her way

time, the more you stay at office the better (so it can control more?)

The point is if you are looking for a life balance, with this kind of managers the only way is to rule out your brain from you work, and just act as a robot. But I can assure you he-she will shout anyway

You know those managers that follow blindly company rules? even the most stupid one? Have you ever worked in that environment?

This situation usually comes together with the denial. Evidence does not touch the manager that will always find a good reason to justify company strategy. When they talk it seems that everyone (except you) are working in a fairyland where all help together, communication is perfect, company treat employees like sons or daughters, and all are working for the greater good.

of course you that object that the reality is different are the point of failure of this model if problems comes they have to be hidden or the blame have to e given to someone in a lower hierarchical status.

No roads no direction

Another typical things that make people unhappy is not to see directions, again a trait of many managers. Every change is allowed and you can’t see a strategy or purpose. Hard to be committed when you can’t see a good reason to do it. But of course every change has a reason, and if you do not cope is you that resist to change.

KPI or how to make clear you will never reach them

KPI (Key Performance Index) are another instrument of torture if used well (and they know how to se it). Basically the idea is to put them at a level that are not reachable, but in a way the fault is your one.

KPI are not necessary sales target wich, by definition, are unreachable, but a complex set of manure used to drive you mad. The more your job is based on intellectual stuffs the better will be your KPI. used as a metric from someone that probably has not idea what your work actually is. but at the end we are all replaceable, and so your work is not so important.

KPI are a fine agreement between two evil entities, your management hierarchy and HR department. HR apparently usually put a lot of effort in designing non understandable systems that seemed to used to target the employee to lower his-her satisfaction, self esteem, professionalism and committment.

Those little financial rules

CFO and financial office are another piece of the puzzle. there are plenty of rules that cha drive you mad.

The complicated procedures to make an expenses refund request are usually a good indicator, the more complex the more easily you get frustrated.

but there are those little rules that really piss you off:

Some companies does not allow you to take Mileage gained with flight, since company pay those miles are of the company…

this would be even correct if the company would demonstrate the same attention to the employee need, but usually this is just one little drop in a “cut expenses beyond ridicolousness”

Some companies put rules on your laundry, the craziest? You can claim laundry for everything but underwear (it is real,it is real, I can prove it)…

Some companies have a certain discretionary ability to move expenses form what is personal expenses to what is business related.

it is quite a common understanding that you have to advance a certain amount of money, wich will be repaid accordingly to the company process. Pity this process usually takes a long time, and the more you have had to advance (bigger expenses claim) the more you have to wait.

Of course the fact you are not travelling for your happiness and pleasure but for job does not come to the mind of the CFO that is probably sat in the office, and when move take a first class flight and can claim every expense.

Cars and other allowance

Ok you give me something for work that is also a benefit. Benefit means it is part of my incomes. so why sometimes this benefit turns out a mer cost since you can not use it for non-working activities (or the constrain are so hight you simply don’t do it?)

From not allowing your husband-wife to drive, or not covering with insurance in non working trip there are a lot of ways to make a benefit non usable.

Of course the best way is not give it to you at all with some good reason, but better not complain, all have to do some sacrifice for the company ou should try to understand.

Phone is another wonderful thing that can slightly make you uncomfortable, mostly if you are an international traveller. policy on phones can var from company to company. some simply does not care (up to you), other provide sim but not phone (but then require you to install any kind of crap on your personal device, it is called BYOD). A classic is to pretend you do not use phone for personal reason (calling family) even if you are on business trip, at the end you live for work not for your beloved. and of course roaming is out of question in most of the case.

Sacrifice and culture

we should all do something for the company.

It hurts me but …

a little sacrifice is mandatory

all nice statements if the company would pay it back with the same coin, but usually those requirements are mono-directional, from management to you.

Is like when a CEO ask for a important layouts and then got a mega bonus, sacrifice hurts mostly if it seems that you (and your peers) are the only one which is required.

In some culture the idea of sacrifice is embedded, but here the aim is to leverage the idea the lower hierarchy has do extra job (hours, activities) because is the right thing to do; something like if the contract that ties the relationship between employer and employee does not already states what an employee is paid for. If sacrifice can be understandable in exceptional situations, can’t be the rule.

Same with culture. Embracing new culture is a bidirectional activity, you can’t ask to understand new culture if you close yourself. There are company that beside the claiming to be “international” are in reality completely closed to the other work culture. typical example is the HR manager that does not even talk the local language.

Flexibility

For some strange reason flexibility is a thing that tend to decrease with the hierarchy. the more you go up the less flexibility is required. So the lower level have to adapt and cope, and be flexible.

But curiously when is the employee that ask in exchange a little flexibility this is denied. so is goof to ask you to work on saturday without pay, but don’t dare to ask a day or some hours to go to a funeral (I’ve seen this as well, alas).

Trust

Trust is a bidirectional thing, you can’t trust someone who does not trust you. at some extent it can be understandable that the company take precautions but it can’t, at the same time, think you have to trust back. If you feel you’re not trusted you will not trust them, as simply as at. Tustin company components is hard, but bad managers and HR usually are in the Top Chart.

So Do not ask me if I’m sending CV away, I do not trust you will understand.

… and so on

Every one of those aspect, per se, can be managed, but usually they comes all together (or at least most of them), because they are all sign of a bad management attitude in the company. Good managers can mitigate this, this is usually exacerbated by bad managers that add their incompetence to the company environment.

From a cultural point of view embracing IoT means, first of all, the awareness of IoT is and its implication.

This awareness and understanding will be shaped while IoT will growth and become part of our life, but if we start to talk about cultural impact of something when it is already there, it is too late.

If we weight our experience nowadays we still do not have coped, from a cultural point of view, with all the technological advantage. Sometimes we simply refuse to accept them and label as bad, ot we use it without a real comprehension.

The result is under everyone’s eye, from the rise of cybercrime to the rise of internet dependencies and the apparent shrink of interpersonal relationships literature is full of example on how we still badly cope with the new technology.

Laws also are affected by this difficult to comprehend the new environment, as management culture as well.

IoT awareness is therefore way more important since is way more pervasive than our actual technology.

IoT will be so pervasive that will change dramatically our perception of privacy. as a matter of fact in the IoT world there is nothing like privacy at all, somehow there is always a sensor monitoring you, and this could drive to unexpected behavior reactions. But for sure a new approach to privacy will be necessary, as well as a new approach to privacy protection. In a world where all is turned on data, those data becomes the paradigm of our reality and so we will have to deal with that accordingly.

Communication Issues

But the changes are also related to the way we will communicate. New jargon comes out every moment, millennial have different language from generations X or baby boomers, and so IoT will developed its own language. How we will incorporate it and drive it is still to be defined, but in IoT the wide level of communication and data interchange will move all this to a worldwide scale. Language will not become a local issue anymore just because to exchange data it is needed a common communication framework. As for privacy without a common understanding of the rules will soon be turn this into a chaos.

Censorship and cultural constrain

One of the main issues IoT will bring with it is how to deal with communication restrictions, or in other words censorship. We have already mentioned censorship as one of the big issues that can affect IoT, to stress more the idea it will be not only a business problem but also a cultural problem. A world of sensor that are monitoring everything (this is the downside of IoT) can affect heavily systems believes and force some culture to close up into themselves. If we will not understand how to cope with it all relationships could be bring to the extreme.

We see it nowadays with the rise of Hate speeches, bullies, urban legends, fake stories on social media how difficult is to cope with more open communication channels, can you imagine what IoT will bring back? We have to assume that the number of data will be way more, and so the way people will interact with those data.

Who is left behind?

And the cultural issues will affect more the technology illiterate, and the ones will be left behind, marking a wider distance between the IoT world citizens and the one left behind. The digital divide is already a cultural problem, IoT will widen it up. Without the proper tools to understand this world the level of non comprehension will rise up dramatically, widen tensions.

And this is not just a problem from rich and poor countries, even inside rich countries the difference and the level of familiarity with technology vary dramatically in social groups or areas.

Illiteracy today is not just referred to not be able to write or do math, but also use internet and technology as computer or Smartphone. Just wide it up the gap with the introduction of new technologies….

How to teach all this

The root of the problem will become: how to teach all this?

Today a scholar system does not approach, generally speaking, the actual technology environment. Schools is, roughly, a century behind the modern world. Access to technology, how to deal with technology, is not common in most of the worldwide scholar system. Is not just a problem of technology in place (give a computer to every student) but also how to teach with the new tools and what to teach?

Cyber security basics, as an example, should be a mandatory introduction in any school of any grade, considering the age our children approach the technology without the proper mindset. But schools are slow to cope with the new world.

But also at corporate level illiteracy about cyber security, technology use, implication between technology and communication are the common reality, and this lack of knowledge spread at every level from the lowest to the highest. a very few exception here can be done.

This issue should cover all the aspect of educations, from first grade to university, to corporate training. We can not afford anymore children that does not know how to protect themselves from the cyber world, of university graduate that face the real world as completely illiterate of what they will find in the real corporate environment, of developers that has not the slightest idea what means privacy and security, of management that is not able to evaluate the impact of technology in their business and so on.

Not to be able to deal with this will means to be overwhelmed by the impact of those technology and, in last analysis, to be ruled out as dinosaurs.

And the list could go on and on. We can make prediction but we can’t see clearly the future (unless using a crystal ball). We need to have new cultural, linguistic, philosophical tools to help us to cope with the new reality.

What to do?

We should start it now, not waiting for some higher action. Share knowledge, awareness, talk and think about those issues is the first step to find a solution and address them.

This is also a call to be active in associations, think thank group or whatever you can to help rising awareness. and where you feel gaps in your own knowledge you can try to discuss them asking from support.